The analysis of clinical or environmental fluids generally involves a series of chemical, optical, electrical, mechanical, or thermal processing steps on the fluid samples. In recent years, there has been growing interest in developing disposable cartridges for conducting analyses of biological samples for various diagnostic and monitoring purposes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,128 to Wilding discloses devices for amplifying a preselected polynucleotide in a sample by conducting a polynucleotide amplification reaction. U.S. Pat. No. 5,922,591 to Anderson et al. describes a miniaturized, integrated nucleic acid diagnostic device and system. The device is generally capable of performing one or more sample acquisition and preparation operations, in combination with one or more sample analysis operations.
Despite these advances, however, there remains a need for a cartridge that permits the rapid thermal processing of a reaction mixture as well as increased sensitivity in the detection of analyte in the mixture.